If you could shrink enough for a fantastic voyage across a lithium battery electrode, you’d see the level of charge at every scale is highly uneven.
This is not good for the battery’s health. Rice University researchers who recognize the problem worked with the Department of Energy to view in great detail how the various particles in an electrode interact with lithium during use.
Specifically, the Rice lab of materials scientist Ming Tang analyzed nano- and micro-scale interactions within lithium iron phosphate cathodes through modeling and imaging offered by the transmission X-ray microscopy capabilities at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
Their paper in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Energy Letters supports theories Tang and his colleagues formed several years ago that foresaw how lithium travels in the dynamic environment inside a typical…
Lithium’s narrow paths limit batteries — ScienceDaily
